coign of vantage

plural coigns of vantage · alternative coigne of vantage

1. a good position for observation, judgement, criticism, action, etc.

   ...a spacious gallery, from which latter coign of vantage an excellent view of the stage is afforded

   1867: A description of the Theatre Royal, Cork (Illustrated London News, Vol LI, p.394)

   4 more examples

   ...it seemed as if the traders had occupied with nests, bearing the same proportion to the building, every buttress and coign of vantage, as the martlet in Macbeth’s Castle.

   1818, Walter Scott, The Heart of Midlothian, page 70

   The enclosure was encircled by a dense and perfect sea of faces. Every coign of vantage had been monopolised, windows and house tops not excepted

   1895 A description of the 1895-6 FA Cup First Round match between Southampton St. Mary's and Sheffield Wednesday at the Antelope Ground (David Bull, Bob Brunskill, Match of the Millennium, 2000)

   …the task of utilising the Duma rostrum and turning all the semi-legal and legal organisations of the working class into coigns of vantage.

   1909 Lenin on Bolshevik policy regarding Social-Democratic deputies in the Third Duma, against the liquidationist trends of otzovism and ultimatumism present in the R.S.D.L.P. (Vladimir Lenin, Collected Works Vol.15, p.459)

   That feeling of being alone, in a strange place, and of being silently looked at, inspected, taken stock of, from some coign of vantage of which one knows nothing, is one of the most trying experiences, one of the most severe nerve-tests, which a human being can go through.

   1918, Joseph Smith Fletcher, Paul Campenhaye, Specialist in Criminology, page 302